Spiritual Minorities and Sexual Abuse?

By André Tarassi (January 2006)

Introduction

A few spiritual leaders in the storm

General conclusion

Sex and Power, politicians and spiritual leaders, an unequal treatment

Anne A. Simpkinson, whose remarks aim to denounce sexual deviance in spiritual groups in the United States, says this in her work “betrayal of the soul”: In the mid-1980s, the wave of articles detailing the accusations against Catholic priests concerning their conduct with adolescents unleashed a succession of revelations about the behaviour of numerous spiritual authorities in practically every religion. Since then, new accusations surface regularly. Hardly a month goes by without a news item emerging about a priest, a rabbi, a pastor, a roshi or a swami accused, or resigning because of, sexual abuse. (…) It would be tempting to point the finger at one group or another and say “it’s their fault, if we put them all in prison, if we eliminated them, there would be no more of these abuses!”. That would not be a reasonable or even feasible solution (sic). If abuses have always existed, it is because of certain principles that are dealt with more or less successfully. One of them is called “transference”. Freud was the first to formulate this concept, which relates to our capacity to transfer feelings from the past onto individuals of the present with the aim of reliving and resolving an earlier experience. Transference no longer allows us to see the person as they really are, but through our projections (…) spiritual authorities are the objects of transference.

These words of Anne Simpkinson are those of someone who understands human relational problems, having studied them, but they also reveal that bias, now generalised, which makes religion or spirituality the cause of deviance in human experience (spirituality = violence, spirituality = sexual deviance, spirituality = illegal enrichment).

The greater part of her work, taken at face value, can induce nausea and incite one insidiously, though doubtless involuntarily, to flee every spiritual path. That is perhaps not the objective, though the overall tendency in this field is towards discredit. This kind of literature seems to me the product of the painful relationship our societies currently have with spirituality. Fortunately, she ends with these more inspired words:

(…) The capacity to abuse someone else is “in our own backyards”, and the important point of this assertion is that it is not only in our backyards but in each of us.

So let us leave aside the conventional discourses and the citations and observe the problem from a new angle: there are two aspects to the problematic of the abuse of power (profiting from one’s influence to satisfy personal needs):

On the one hand, this phenomenon cannot be denied. (Read “Daily manipulations”)
On the other hand, this phenomenon is not confined to the religions and the new forms of spirituality, but concerns human nature. (Read “the manipulated word”)

This being laid down as a reasonable postulate, it follows that another, invisible abuse takes shape in this context: the denunciation of almost all the spiritual leaders of these last thirty years is in large part due to the use of this campaign of stigmatisation of the spiritual minorities, which has allowed, and still allows, many people to settle personal scores by way of this sensitive subject. We are all copiously informed of the accusations, but we are not conscious of the enormous quantity of fabrications, exaggerations and more or less intentional defamations on the subject.

The few great affairs of recent years, summarised below, whether or not they ended in convictions, confirm this and provide an overall perception more balanced and instructive than the one supplied by the traditional media.

Note: Links lead to the website of each of these personalities, not to promote their teaching, which is never the CICNS’s object, but with the aim of balancing the information about them, so great is the deployment of the crudest anonymous allegations on the Internet.

Deepak Chopra (March 2000)

Deepak Chopra was cleared by the courts after a deliberation of 10 minutes. The jury rejected the complaint of a former colleague, Joyce Weaver, who accused him of having had her dismissed because she complained of sexual harassment. “The jury’s verdict, unanimous, declares that she lied, that she fabricated this story and that Chopra told the truth,” his lawyer, Michael Flynn, reported afterwards.

Swami Chetanananda (August 2005)

A few followers accused Swami Chetanananda (J. Michael Shoemaker) of having exploited them financially and sexually. One of them, Dana Swift, a barmaid, recounts that she had been very attracted by the “divine energy” of this man who “made her euphoric”. In the course of meetings with him, she noticed that certain disciples followed the Swami to his apartments after the lectures. Swift managed to become part of this intimate circle that attracted her. In April 1998, she says, the master finally made her a sexual proposition. A few other women made the same assertions, but under cover of anonymity. Following these accusations, Swami Chetanananda declared officially that he did sometimes have sexual relations with consenting adult women. In a text he wrote for the occasion, he declares that these affairs are the product “of a small circle of former members who gather regularly in order to plan the distribution of calumnies on the Internet… The allegations are not only lies, but the distortions are so gross that it is simply impossible to answer them”. Diane Asay, a current disciple of the Swami, confirms having seen some of these women fight for “access to his bed”, and says that those who had in reality not obtained what they wanted had now set off on a crusade to destroy him. No trial, but the rumour circulates.

The existence of a satanic sexual cult invented out of whole cloth, according to the court. (January 2004)

German justice declared that the accusations of ritual killings, cannibalism and sexual rites by a supposed satanic cult had been fabricated out of whole cloth. The accusations came from a woman who said she had been the victim for 18 years of sexual abuse by members of this cult. She had constructed an accusation so elaborate that she recounted in detail how she had had to undergo repeated abortions during certain ceremonies while other victims were killed there, cut into pieces and devoured. This 33-year-old woman asserted that the rituals took place in the Trier region, in western Germany, and in Belgium. Horst Roos, the chief prosecutor, declared that the investigation had demonstrated these allegations were false.

Catholic priests victims of false accusations:

After a deliberation of seven and a half hours, Robert Schaeufele, a Catholic priest known as “jovial brother Bob”, was acquitted. The two alleged victims said they had been abused by him in 1984, when they were 9 and 10. His lawyer declared that Schaeufele was himself a victim of society’s obsession with sexual abuse perpetrated by priests, a climate that easily leads to false accusations for the settling of scores. He compares these trials to the witch-hunts of the past. “Schaeufele is innocent and honest,” he says.
Monsignor Michael Smith Foster returned to his parish near Boston, not guilty of the accusations made against him. “I am deeply touched by your love and your support,” he declared to the assembly gathered at his church to welcome him. A former altar boy, Paul R. Edwards, had accused him of regularly assaulting him sexually in his room between 1980 and 1985. The priest had been suspended. The declarations progressively turned out to be full of factual errors and lies.
A judge acquitted another Catholic priest, Raymond Larger, 54, accused of the rape of an altar boy in the 1990s. After hearing the two-hour testimony of the 21-year-old accuser, the judge exclaimed: “We cannot go any further with this testimony, of which it is impossible to believe a word. In all conscience, I cannot allow this to continue!”. Raymond Larger left the courtroom embracing his family and saying of his accuser: “I forgive him entirely, I wish the best for him now”.

Swami Muktananda (November 1994)

The accusations, brought shortly before the death of Swami Muktananda (Baba) in 1982, said that he had broken his vow of celibacy. They were published in 1983 in an article in CoEvolution Quarterly written by William Rodarmor. The article was based on interviews with 25 apostates of SYDA detailing Muktananda’s supposed sexual activities with very young women disciples. During Muktananda’s lifetime, however, nothing had been published, though a few accusations were beginning to appear, verbally, in the last years of his life, just before he designated his successors within the ashram. He had moreover replied to them with a text, “A message from Baba”, in which he cited Kabir, the 15th-century poet: The elephant moves at its own pace while the dogs follow behind barking, adding that disciples should know the truth from their own experience and not from what they read or hear. Muktananda’s closest disciples, sometimes living in rooms next to the Swami’s, affirm that they never saw or heard anything that could confirm these apostates’ attacks. No trial, but the rumour continues to circulate.

Sathya Sai Baba (1976 to the present day)

Sathya Sai Baba has millions of followers in the world. The exact figure is unknown. He is considered, in India, one of the most influential sages, a living god. The prime minister is one of his fervent disciples, the chief of police is his driver. He is renowned for making sacred ash (Vibhuti) appear from his fingers, and for his miracles. His ashram has been full for years. Yet, like many other spiritual leaders in the world, and perhaps even more intensely, he is accused of having continually abused young boys sexually at his ashram. The first accusations date from 1976, when Tal Brooke, a former American follower, wrote “Avatar of Night”. The allegations are plausible, but an alternative explanation of this rumour is offered by a follower, Stuart Jones, who indicates that Sai Baba, in the course of a private or public dialogue, sometimes massages with oil certain points of the body connected with “energy centres” (chakras). Carole Alderman, founder of his charitable work, declares: “I have witnessed many miracles, I have seen people arrive in wheelchairs and leave walking. I have seen him materialise all sorts of things out of nowhere, several times a day. I have been able to observe that he knew everything. Why should my word be less true than theirs?” And when questioned about the sexual accusations, she replies: “It is without foundation, everyone who knows him knows that”. Although these accusations have circulated for more than thirty years, Sai Baba has never been officially charged and has never been called to appear in court in India.

Sri Swami Satchidananda (1991)

One evening in 1991, a few former women disciples of a celebrated Yoga master, Sri Swami Satchidananda, brutally interrupted his lecture in a grand hotel. “How can you consider yourself a spiritual leader when you have sexually abused women of your community?”, Susan Cohen challenged him. The grey-bearded sage, aged 76, seated cross-legged in his saffron-coloured robe, did not seem disturbed by this interruption. He even murmured “Thank you”, which made the assembly laugh, then resumed the course of his presentation on the way to find inner peace… while his assailants left the room. Susan Cohen and Sylvia Shapiro accuse him of having forced them into a sexual relationship when they were his secretaries… 20 years earlier.

One of the old man’s close disciples thinks it fairly normal that a person with thousands of students should provoke malcontents capable of unfounded accusations. No lawsuit was brought against him. A journalist questioned him in private about these accusations, to which he replied by saying: “They know that all this is false. Moreover, my life is an open book, I have never hidden anything from anyone”.

Ananda (March 1999)

The Ananda Church of Self-Realization (distinct from the Self-Realization Fellowship created by Yogananda) was founded in the 1960s. In their church one sees the portraits of Yogananda and of his master Sri Yukteswar, as well as of Babaji.

In 1998, the Redwood court summoned Donald J. Walters (called Swami Kriyananda), Levin, another leader of the movement, and the church itself, as a legal entity, for sexual abuse of former members. Six women came to assert at the bar that the Swami had abused them when they were 20. The church was finally ordered to pay $300,000, Walters $400,000 and Levin $30,000. Jon Parsons has been Ananda’s lawyer since the 1980s. He says of its members and leaders: “I know them all and I find them all, without exception, sincere, devoted and honest”. He thinks the attack, very well mounted, was due to people with a past grudge, such as spurned lovers, in particular one of them whom Levin, married and the father of a child, had rejected. Walters admitted having had sexual relations with women, but said these were consenting relations without abuse. The videos showing him in court led even his fiercest adversaries to say that he always behaved like a very refined gentleman, a little old England, even while listening to the most humiliating descriptions, which he nevertheless judged mendacious.

Yogi Amrit Desai (1994)

In October 1994, Yogi Amrit Desai, spiritual director and founder of the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health at Lenox in Massachusetts (USA), resigned after admitting to having had relations with five women, over several years, following the scandal these revelations had created. The 62-year-old spiritual teacher had until then been considered by all a gentle and inspiring person. The Kripalu centre then went through an intense catharsis involving teachers, disciples and therapists, in order to work through, sometimes very emotionally, all the frustrations and fears this situation had awakened. The result is that the centre still exists, with different staff, who say they have been “matured by this experience”. There was no trial. The relations admitted by the spiritual leader were socially admissible, insofar as they had existed between adults.

Sogyal Rinpoche (1995)

In December 1995, the first historic lawsuit against a Buddhist teacher was resolved by mediation. The suit, which had begun in November 1994 against Lama Sogyal Rinpoche, accused him of having, for 19 years, induced his women students to have sexual relations with him, “profiting from their vulnerability and from the belief that they would attain enlightenment by serving the sexual and other needs of their master Sogyal”. Sogyal’s defence suggested an amicable financial settlement, accepted by the plaintiffs. Even if Sogyal Rinpoche was not a monk and had not taken a vow of chastity, it is certain that Buddhism’s reputation for asceticism was considerably diminished after this affair.

ISKCON (Hare Krishna) (2000)

In 1998, a 400-million-dollar lawsuit was brought against the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), one million members in the world and 75,000 in the United States and Canada. The movement was founded by the Indian master Srila Prabhupada in 1966. One of the accusations concerns hypothetical sexual abuse of young children between 1972 and 1990 by certain members of the movement in the USA. ISKCON declared that they had had knowledge of abuse by members in the past but that they had immediately created bodies in each gurukula (spiritual centre) in order to protect children and women. But it is the whole reputation of the master and of his teaching that was affected by this news. In France, those who were called the “Hare Krishna” have almost totally disappeared, to the openly displayed satisfaction of certain authorities working for the eradication of the spiritual minorities, even as, since their absence, one hears certain people affirm that they were not so wicked and just a bit “folkloric” (See the intervention of Mme Katz of the Miviludes on a television programme with Jean-Luc Delarue). An established religion like Catholicism, for its part, has survived well the accusations of paedophilia against hundreds of priests.

Sri Chinmoy

The case of Sri Chinmoy is spread across the Internet. Former women disciples testify to having been sexually abused by their “venerated guru”, who (inevitably) “had a very small member” and “had great difficulty having an erection”. Others speak of the fact that he called himself a vegetarian but is said to have been caught several times eating meat (“gluttonously”, as in this example where the master, having come to wait for one of his disciples at the airport (when all the rest of the hostile literature would rather suggest he would entrust that task to someone else), the latter arrives earlier than expected and thus surprises her guru eating (“like a pig”) pieces of chicken while waiting for her, and “very embarrassed” at being discovered (so he had to be at the airport to indulge in the vice of eating chicken, when he would ordinarily do everything to hide it?). No lawsuit against Sri Chinmoy in all these years, only testimonies, often anonymous because “Sri Chinmoy would threaten them”.

Sri Chinmoy did not intervene publicly on these questions and asked his followers not to respond to what was being poured out on the Internet. Sri Chinmoy died on 11 October 2007.

The Mandarom (Gilbert Bourdin, Hamsah Manarah) (1993 to today)

The example closest to us, in France. A certain Mme E testifies in the newspaper La Croix in 1993: “I do not think there was a drug problem, as the rumour suggested. I can affirm on the other hand that a sexual exploitation is practised. Hundreds of women have been solicited sexually. The master lets the necessity of initiatory sessions be assumed. How else to explain the improbable quantity of divorces among couples who frequented the MANDAROM?” The association of the Knights of the Golden Lotus sued for defamation. The defamation was recognised by the Paris TGI on 25/10/1993.

Subsequently, Mme F.R. also alleged rape.

On the basis of her testimony, 18 disciples and Gilbert Bourdin were arrested on 12 June 1995.

F.R. and B.N. would write a book and would be convicted by the Tribunal de Grande Instance of Nanterre, on 17/11/95, for not having respected the presumption of innocence. F.R.’s complaint ended in a dismissal on 13 November 1998, after the death of Gilbert Bourdin.

General conclusion:

Today, on an identical accusation, the media and our fellow citizens ultimately show more clemency and less intransigence towards politicians, who are responsible for an entire nation, and for whom the presumption of innocence, indeed sometimes immunity, is applied, contrary to what is practised for spiritual leaders who lead small communities. It seems to us, in any case, that a particularly malevolent attention is granted the latter, considering the corruption of certain political personalities who, for their part, have a real power of influence over humanity.

In plain terms, our society has grown used to creating and denouncing scapegoats that serve to divert attention.

Has the Outreau affair in France taught us the limits of our prejudices, our certainties and our fears (2)? Are the examples above not the demonstration of a cacophony and a bias?

Most of the cases we have studied are only rumours, without official complaints or trials, even though the accusations are sometimes very heavy and run on for years. When these affairs are brought to court, many plaintiffs are dismissed (including in several affairs involving Catholic priests tried in a predominantly Protestant country (USA)), and for others who are not, doubt remains as to the veracity of the facts, and money suddenly seems to play an important role, to the point of making every complaint disappear (if the complaints really had as their motive to make “the truth” known, or to warn other people, or indeed to heal a personal wound, we could expect less venality). In total, with the exception of rare demonstrated abuses, we are faced with an avalanche of tarnished reputations leading to the banishment from society of some of the best-inspired people.

However, even if, in the midst of this torrent of lies, we had to underline the few real acts that deserve condemnation in court, would we know how to develop an adequate education for our drifting humanity rather than pointing the finger at scapegoats? Would we know how to recognise the excess of the amalgams? Would we know how to admit that possible lapses do not suffice to condemn a man for life, still less his spiritual community, to say nothing of all the others, in the same sack?

On this subject, as on other, similar ones, the CICNS keeps a patient and attentive watch in order to restore a little clarity in a dark night. Read also Money, Sex, Power. Read also Sex and Power, politicians and spiritual leaders, an unequal treatment. Read Calumny, the Dominique Baudis affair

Read Judges and the cults in France and French Justice

(1) If one of our readers has updates on these affairs, please send them to Admin@cicns.net return to the text

(2) Five magistrates of the Douai court of appeal declared on 11 January 2006 on the subject of the Outreau affair: “We have an acute awareness of our responsibilities… It must be seen not as an isolated aberration but rather as the paroxysmal revelation of a genuine repressive and media stampede (…) It comes at a period when sexual crime has been erected into absolute horror by legislation (…) The verdict allows some to rediscover the value of the presumption of innocence, when for three years, in the name of an ever more invasive security policy, the legislator has erected incarceration into a precautionary principle. return to the text

André Tarassi was born in 1961, he is the founder of the CICNS. An independent researcher, he has studied the New Spiritualities for 25 years. He studied journalism and television in the United States. He has published, under another name, several works on the spiritual path.